Reduce stress before exams

Reduce stress before exams

Source: http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Stress-Management/Reduce-stress-before-exams

At the beginning of your term you give yourself a promise to study hard and succeed in whatever you have planned. But things just happen to distract you from doing serious tasks and you start postponing: till next day, till next weekend, till next month, year and so on. You start getting interested in the present day only, your nearest future stops being your concern and you live happily and spend your days having fun with your friends. Every weekday you come to university and peacefully sit there, not concentrating on what your lecturer says. Suddenly a word "exam" appears in this monologue and you become very interested in it. While your tutor is talking, you feel a strange feeling tickling you in your belly and it doesn't stop even when you have a break for lunch. This is the first sign of getting worried. It is not a top secret that people, both tutors and students become stressed out before exam. This is a dangerous state of organism that may hurt others that are around. Here is some practical piece of advice for those who are tired of this feeling but can't help having it.

What is the reason of stress? When thinking about exams you worry about not passing it. If you have not enough knowledge on the topic, you will fail and have to take the course again. It is the fear to fail that makes us so nervous and stressed. Having not enough knowledge is not a problem for the one who is willing to study. Start your preparation from the first class. If you listen attentively, take notes, complete the assignments on time, you will not have to sit days and nights before exam and worry about some part of information that you've missed. A slight revision would be enough to refresh your memory. If you have problems with your assignment writing you can perform a custom term paper order and be a hundred percent sure that everything will be fine. You can order custom term paper that will be written on a high level with creative approach and duly completed on time. That will leave you some time for yourself and maybe your studies if it is a way you use your free time.

And here is one more thing. If you failed to do the above mentioned and still feel that horrible strain, there is one more advice. Cheating will not help you on your exam and in your future life. It is you that is cheated, not your tutors. The best way is to be honest with the examiner. Don't lose your face when answering; you have to stay focused every second. Nobody has died of passing an exam yet and hopefully nobody will. Teacher's aim is to teach you, not to fail you at your exam, because students are a credit to a teacher. If you still need some time to learn and study more, do it systematically, not chaotically and everything will be alright and you'll go home on vacation a happy person with good news to you parents.

in Stress Management

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Innovation: The Life Blood Of Your Business

Innovation: The Life Blood Of Your Business

Source: http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Innovation/Innovation_58_-The-Life-Blood-Of-Your-Business

If you're running or managing a business  and want it to be around for a long time, you need to spend a good part of your time innovating. That's because, in a fast-moving world, where people expect things to get better and better, and cheaper and cheaper, innovation is your route to getting ahead of your competition.

Here are 7 ways to put new life blood into your organization through innovation.

1. Create An Innovative Climate. Goran Ekvall of Lund University in Sweden has defined three conditions needed for a climate of innovation. They are: trust, dynamism, and humour. One of Ekvall's case studies was a Swedish newspaper where the team working on the women's section consistently outperformed all the other teams. The reason? Quite simply, this group trusted one another, had a high level of energy and shared a common sense of humour.

2. Develop Washing-Up Creativity. According to the Roffey Park Management Institute, most flashes of inspiration come to people when they are away from work and not forcing their conscious brains to find solutions to their problems. For some, ideas come while mowing the lawn or taking the dog for a walk or playing golf or waiting on a railway station. For Isaac Newton, it was an apple on the head while sitting in the garden. For Archimedes, it was in the bath. For others it's while doing the dishes; that's why Roffey Park calls these flashes of insight: "washing-up creativity".

3. Make New Connections. Making new connections between existing features of your product or service is a popular way to innovate. Akio Morita, chairman of Sony, said that he invented the Walkman because he wanted to listen to music while walking between shots on his golf course. His team simply put together two seemingly incompatible products: a tape recorder and a transistor radio.

4. Find Out What People Need. Necessity is a great spur to innovation. Take, for example, writing paper. The Chinese had already made paper from rags around the year 100 BC but because there was no need for it, nothing came of it. When it did reach Europe in the Middle Ages when writing was all the rage, the supply of rags and worn-out fabric soon dried up. That's when a French naturalist made the discovery that wasps made their nests by chewing wood into a mash that dried in thin layers. Within 100 years, all paper was made using the idea of wood pulp.

5. Test, Test, Test. Product testing is the way most inventors and organizations go about innovation. It may not be the quickest route to success, but it is often the surest. Jonas Salk, for example, discovered the polio vaccine by spending most of his time testing and testing and continually finding out what didn't work. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the filament light bulb, recorded 1300 experiments that were complete failures. But he was able to keep going because, as he said, he knew 1300 ways that it wasn't going to work.

6. Adopt and Adapt. One relatively easy approach to innovation is to notice how others deal with problems and then adapt their solutions to your own. It's known as "adapt and adopt". It's what watchmakers Swatch did when they realized that the more reliable their watches became, the less people needed to replace them. Their solution? Borrow an idea from the world of fashion and collections by turning their watches into desirable fashion accessories. Now people buy Swatch watches not just to tell the time but because it's cool to do so.

7. Take Lessons From Nature. If you really want to be inventive, you can't beat nature. The world of nature gives us an endless supply of prototypes to use in our own world. Take Velcro, for example. Velcro was patented by Georges de Mestral in 1950 after he returned from a hunting trip covered in tiny burrs that had attached themselves to his clothing by tiny overlapping hooks. De Mestral quickly realized that here was an ideal technique to fasten material together. A whole new way of doing things was suddenly invented.

The history of the world is the history of innovation. Thomas Kuhn called each acceptance of a new innovation a "paradigm shift". For once a new innovation becomes accepted, the world has changed for ever and can never go back to the way it was.

in Innovation

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Simple Rules of Home Organization

Simple Rules of Home Organization

Source: http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Organizing/Simple-Rules-of-Home-Organization

Let's be honest.

Nobody likes rules.

But the thing is, if you're serious about home organization, then there are some specific rules you'll want to follow.

You'll see how much easier organization will be by taking the following simple steps...

Home Organizing Rule #1:

"Touch it Once!"

This is a form of procrastination and it causes piles because something is being put off until later. It could be a little laziness, but more often it's due to lack of time.

The thing is, this rule will save you time.

For everything you put off until later, you're touching it twice when it should be just once. You (or someone you live with) is procrastinating and putting things off until later.

Why?

To save a couple of seconds today, you're wasting five minutes tomorrow.

For example...

You come home, throw the shirt on the bed because you're going to hang it up or throw it in the laundry basket later.

Or you shove it on a shelf in the closet and will hang it later.

No good.

This is two steps when it should be one. Common sense? Of course.

But few practice this simple rule of home organizing.

Touch it once. The coffee cup goes in the dishwasher, not on the counter and into the dishwasher later.

The mail coming in the house should be dealt with immediately...not added to a pile where you touch it more than once for no reason at all other than procrastination

Home Organizing Rule #2:

Keep things together that belong together.

Sweaters with sweaters. Shirts with shirts. One shelf for snacks and a shelf for cans.

Take a look around a fancy clothing store.

They're designed to help you (the customer) find exactly what you need.

Wouldn't it be nice to find whatever it is you're looking for in a matter of seconds?

Same goes for a grocery store. If these shelves weren't organized, these stores would go broke because nobody would be able to find a thing.

Home Organizing Rule #3 - Organize ONLY one space at a time.

Work on one small space at a time in set increments and try and do it every single day. It might only be for fifteen or twenty minutes, but the key is to get something organized everyday and make it consistent.

If you try and tackle too much at once, you won't get done because of an already hectic schedule. Incomplete tasks are discouraging and you might just give up.

The smaller the task, the easier to complete

And the better you'll feel.

Often organizing something as small as a junk drawer or even your wallet can give you the boost in motivation to "step it up" into a bigger project.

If you have to do the junk drawer over a two day period, big deal?

Take two days to do it.

Getting it done is the key.

One small step at a time.

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Virtual Staffing For Your Small Business

Virtual Staffing For Your Small Business

Source: http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Management/Virtual-Staffing-For-Your-Small-Business

What's a Virtual Assistant?

Virtual assistants are independent contractors or entrepreneurs who provide administrative assistance to multiple clients. Unlike regular assistants, they work out of their homes rather than at your business' physical location.

There are numerous advantages to using a virtual assistant:

• Location. If you work from home, you don't have to find a place to put an employee.
• No Overhead. They provide their own office supplies, desk, computer, software, and phone lines.
• No Benefits. They're not your employee, so you aren't responsible for paying social security or income taxes, holidays, insurance, vacation or sick pay.
• Lots of Flexibility. It's significantly easier to find a virtual assistant who can work evening hours or weekends-after all, they're working from home. And you can give them more or less hours as your needs change.

There are virtual staffing companies that match virtual assistants with small and home-based businesses who need help running things.

How Do I Know What I'm Getting?

Gayle Buske is the president and CEO of http://TeamDoubleClick.com, a highly reputed virtual staffing agency. Her clients are often concerned about hiring someone without ever seeing their face. She reassures them that because the agencies don't get to meet the people they send to their clients-often they're in different states-their hiring processes are a great deal more stringent. In fact Buske admits, "We turn away about 70% of the people that we interview." Those who make the grade go through a 9-part interviewing process and then are trained and certified.

Virtual agencies try to match each client with an assistant who is a good fit for their needs. They look at qualifications, personality and work style, and hours of availability-both number and times. Whatever your unique requirements, they'll work to find someone who's a good fit.<

Common Client Concerns

• How do I know that my assistant is actually working the hours I'm paying them for?

To allow you to track their progress, many agencies have their staff send daily reports of their activities. They may say how many inbound calls they received, how many outbound calls they made, how many appointments they set, what documents they worked on, as well as how many hours they put in for the day and their cumulative hours for the week. This can help you stay on budget-if you see they've already worked the total hours you planned to pay them for, you can push back other projects until next week.

• How hard is it to work with someone from a remote location?

Buske points out, "There's so much technology now that really facilitates working virtually." She contends it's as simple as hitting the speed dial instead of the intercom or attaching files to an email rather than walking them to the next room. Most of your communication will be via phone, fax, and email. There are also online meeting programs (http://GoToMeeting.com) that let you do demonstrations and presentations, such as for training purposes.

And their skills run the gamut-everything from accounting to marketing to graphic design. Whether you need someone to answer incoming calls and do mailers or someone who can manage your entire business when you're away, you can find staff with all levels of skills.

in Management

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The Truth about Driving Qualified Traffic to Your Website

The Truth about Driving Qualified Traffic to Your Website

Source: http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Site-Promotion/The-Truth-about-Driving-Qualified-Traffic-to-Your-Website

Companies large and small are constantly seeking creative, high return strategies to increase visibility on the Internet. The quest for a high ranking position seems to be a never ending process. With most people there seems to be an endless search for the one answer on how to drive traffic to their website and turn those visitors into buyers.

There are countless methods to increase your visibility and revenues. Some are tremendously effective while others are a complete waste of time and money. Some require an extremely high financial investment while others require no money, just an investment of time. The goal of any company is to convert website visitors into buyers. Before you can do this, you must create a value for them.

The first method starts with becoming a resource before you are a vendor. This means creating credibility with your potential buyers before you ever ask for the sale. Hands down, one of the best ways to accomplish this is by offering something of high perceived value at no cost to visitors from your website. This could be a white paper, a content driven report, a how-to MP3 file, or an invitation to sign up for a seminar or business briefing.

In order to access the information or sign up for the seminar, have your visitors leave their contact information. It can be simply a name and email address or full contact information. The visitor will receive your free product and you will have gained a new contact.

The question then becomes, "How do I drive qualified visitors to my site?" It's great to offer something from your site, but as with anything, you must know how to market your site to potential buyers.

One of the most cost-effective strategies to drive qualified traffic to your site(s) is through article writing and distribution to forums, discussion groups and Ezines that are specific to your market.

The articles must be content driven, not a blatant sales piece. With most online resources you can add what is referred to as a "resource box" at the end of the article. A resource box contains 2 – 4 sentences about you with a link back to your site.

A second effective method to drive traffic to websites is with solo ads in specific locations. Rather than trying to sell something in the solo ad, offer your free resources by giving a description of the item with a link back to where they can download or register.

Solo ads are very cost-effective and work well when placed in the right publications and sites. Again, it is based on knowing your market rather than randomly placing an ad and hoping for a result.

A third effective method in generating site traffic is to participate in Joint Venture (JV) Campaigns. In JV Campaigns, one person sells a product and dozens of other people offer a valuable bonus product with the purchase.

Basically, a bonus eProduct is offered as an incentive to buy another eProduct, book, product or service. With this type of campaign each JV Partner agrees to send a message to their readers about the campaign.

In order to have access to the bonus product, customers visit a landing page where there is a description of the bonus as well as a place to leave a name and email address in order to get the bonus.

The cost is minimal and yet the market reach is incredible, often exceeding millions. Only participate in JV campaigns with people who are reputable and their product fits with your market or message.

Regardless of which strategy you use to gain opt-in subscribers you must make sure your backend marketing systems are in place. Many businesses fail to utilize the power of Internet marketing to the fullest potential because they have no backend marketing systems. To not do this is a waste of time, money and energy.

By keeping in touch with current and potential customers you build trust and name recognition. You will be recognized as a resource before you are a vendor, putting you miles ahead of the competition.

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What Am I Going To Do With The Rest Of My Life?

What Am I Going To Do With The Rest Of My Life?

Unexpected life changes. Anticipated transitions. Long, sleepless nights. What do these three things have in common? The ability to provoke one of the most haunting questions in the library of human introspectives:

"What on earth am I going to do with the rest of my life?"

While I can't pretend to answer to this question for anyone other than myself, I can offer those in this position some basic tips on how to ensure that their future turns out as bright as their class valedictorian said it would be.

Take Time To Create A Map

Too often, when faced with a major (or even not so major) life decision, we tend to either take the first decent choice that presents itself or we allow circumstances to choose for us by default - putting off the decision until the inexorable current of life sweeps us past the turning point. As you can imagine, this is not the best way to get what you want out of life. But the options we are faced with in life can be so wildly divergent, or so deceptively similar, that it is difficult to know which turning to take. Wouldn't it be great if we had some kind of road map that would help us know which paths to follow and which to pass by?

Below are five questions that everybody should ask himself or herself before starting out on any new path. The answers to these questions should then be used to guide decisions and to direct actions - when a choice comes up, simply compare the various options with your stated desires and choose the option that takes you closer to (or at least moves you the least farthest away from) your destination - your stated goals and desires.

1. What does success mean to me?

Be very specific. "I want to be rich," is not an answer - just what does "rich" mean, anyway? Are you thinking of a set number? And if so, why? Or is the term "rich" a substitute for certain freedoms and opportunities that you view as coming only with money - and by limiting them to being accessed only through money, are you missing out on other alternative pathways?

Some more specific alternatives to "I want to be rich," depending on the individual, might be: "I want to have enough net income to meet my current financial responsibilities without strain, plus have time and money left over for travel," or "I want to be able to comfortably afford a jet-setting lifestyle in New York City," or "I want to spend 4 days a week at home with my kids," etc.

You should try to come up with at least three answers to the question of what success really means to you personally, with each one reflecting a different facet of what you feel makes up a truly successful life. And keep the money issue to just one statement - after all, such things as personal fulfillment, spiritual meaning and other essential needs and values cannot be solved, acquired or even influenced by money

One of the biggest obstacles to success is that most of us have never consciously explored what that means to us, aside from some vague and nebulous idea of fame, fortune or other worldly success. Knowing what success really means to you - what you hope or imagine that these generic definitions of success would actually provide and how you want those things to physically look like in your life - allows you to weigh your choices more accurately.

2. What are my non-negotiable needs?

List all the things that you envision as inescapable parameters of a successful and enjoyable life. Family, travel, no debt, pleasant work environment, social status, contributions to society, spiritual involvement, public acclaim, love, excitement, comfort - any or all of these, and any others you can think of are legitimate needs that when not met create an environment of stress, want and disempowerment in your life. Knowing what you are not willing to do without makes the relative values of different options clearer.

3. What are my non-negotiable boundaries?

List all the things that you absolutely do not want present in your life. If the idea of working in a standard hierarchical office environment makes you ill, put that down. If you can't stand the thought of living in a cold climate, add that to the list. If being poked fun at about your physical condition or other attributes makes life unlivable, note that as well. By knowing what you will not tolerate, many choices become much easier to make. Plus, it allows you to set down rules and policies about who and what you will invite into your life and the standards of behavior you will, and will not, tolerate.

4. What are my key values?

Spend some time searching your soul to come up with a list of your basic values, creating a life around which would make you the person you want to be and allow you to live the life you want to live. Are you the type who values honesty, clean/green living and a deep love of nature above all things? Or are you more of a 'comforts of home', family and fun kind of person? Do you value charity over letting others find their way on their own, or is it the other way around? Knowing what you truly stand for is a vital component of good decision-making.

5. What do I want to be remembered for?

What legacy do you want to leave here when you pass on? What do you want people to say about your life and you as a person? What do you want to be known for? What would you like your obituary to say about you? Knowing where you want to end up makes choosing the path to get there, and keeping track of your progress, infinitely easier.

Key Points To Consider

There are three key points to keep in mind when you are faced with making life-changing decisions.

1. Look before you leap.

In life, as in commercial marketing, "Buy now before this opportunity is gone!" is almost always code-speak for, "Buy now, before you have time to read the fine print." True, from time to time real, honest-to-goodness, amazing, once-in-a-lifetime offers do come around. But if you have laid down a foundation of well-considered choices and clear-minded focus before this happens, you will have the presence of mind and strength of purpose to know when to jump and when to pass, and be much more capable of telling the difference between a missed opportunity and a close call.

2. Life is no longer a "one chance per person" event.

The times, they are definitely a'changing, and one of the best things to come out of that change is that we now understand that people change as well and that this is not only normal, but expected. The career or life that suited you perfectly in your 20's will most likely not fit the middle-aged you, no more than the same wardrobe or lifestyle would. Sometimes this is merely the result of the normal process of personal evolution we all go through as we age and mature, and sometimes it comes about suddenly in response to reality-shifting events and life-changing transitions such as living through a traumatic event, losing a job or getting married.

However change comes, be prepared to go with the flow. Don't worry about "all that time I spent in grad school," or what your friends and family will say. In the first instance, there is no such thing as "sunk costs" in life - 90% of nearly any education or life experience is 100% transferable to new situations and new outlets. In sports they call it "cross-training," and an athlete doesn't consider his or her training complete without in. In the second instance, well, if they love you they will want you to be happy and if they don't love you, then who cares what they think? Besides, they're not the ones who have to live this life - you are.

Also falling under this heading is the admonition not to trade a good life now for some nebulous "better tomorrow," such as spending your life zombie-ing through a career you hate for the promise of a pensioned retirement. All too often, these "tomorrows," if they ever do come, are no better than the "nows" you wasted. And as often as not the stress of living an unhappy life permanently cripples or even kills people, physically or otherwise, well before they can get to their imagined golden "tomorrow."

3. Trying to find your "one, true purpose" is a waste of life.

We are all put here on this earth for any number of reasons - some big, some small and most of which we will never understand or even realize we've participated in until well after they've become distant memory. Spending too much time trying to scry your "true purpose" in the tea leaves of life can take your attention and energy away from creating the kind of life that would actually support the accomplishment these purposes in the first place.

A far better is alternative to create what I call a "Groundhog Day-Proof Life." Based on the Bill Murray movie in which his character has to live the same day over and over, this concept involves creating a life that reflects your values, offers you opportunities to challenge yourself and is fulfilling enough and just plain pleasant enough so that if by some strange cosmic fluke you became trapped in any given day of your life, it would be a good thing rather than a tragedy. Living this sort of life virtually ensures that you will be who and where you need to be to fulfill any purpose you may have been sent here to accomplish, while at the same time providing you with a wonderful and rewarding "rest of your life" in the process.

Summary

Getting the most out of life isn't about living "right." It's about living well. Learning to consciously steer your life in the direction you want to take it, making the choice to live by your own set of values and desires and making sure that you get the most out of the limited days you are given ensures that when the time comes for your life to pass before your eyes in review, the show will definitely be worth the price of the admission.

in Goal Setting

Source: www.readbud.com

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Top 10 SEO Copywriting

Top 10 SEO Copywriting

What would happen if…? I'm a person to always ask that question. I love testing and tracking to see what factors can improve or worsen a situation. So, it was only natural for me to track the moves of a little experiment I did involving SEO copywriting recently. I'll gladly share my findings with you.

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